Conduit connecter for agitating devices



July 14, 1936. E SIMPSON 2,047,713 CONDUIT'CONNECTER FOR AGITA'IING DEVICES Filed Jan. 29, 1954 2 Sheets-Sheet l liraofl. a

Q a a I I w 5 l E 1 7 7 INVENTOR.

ATTO RNEYa July M, 1936..

CONDUIT CONNECTER FOR AGITATING DEVICES L. E. SIMPSON 2,047,713

Filed Jan. 29, 1934 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 VEN TOR.

s- BY 2 2 ATTORNEYS.

ratented July 14, 1936 UNHE STATS ATEN'H' DFFICE CONDUIT CONNECTER FOR AGITATING DEVICES 3 Claims.

My invention relates to devices in the form of sleeves which are employed to connect conduit pipes extending to and from devices to which gases, liquids, or solids are being conveyed, or from which they are being discharged, to mechanisms which are agitated to perform work on the material being conveyed.

The immediate use for which my invention has been applied is that of conveying material to and from sorting and separating screens. Although not a sufficiently embracing term, the machines using such screens are sometimes called sifters, and include an enclosed body in which the screens are located, with orifices leading to and away from the screen or screens.

It has been the practice in the past to attach a beaded edge ring to the several orifices leading to and from sifting machines and provide the customer with a beaded ring to attach to the several pipes, hopper mouths or conduits which are employed in handling the material tobe treated to and from the device. The customer then has in the past placed a flannel sleeve or open-ended bag over the rings and employed these bags as connectors.

These bags are not satisfactory. Their life is not long, and they are not dust-tight; when handling liquids they leak and deteriorate rapidly, they are unsightly and often sag, thus constricting flow. When used with exhaust systems to withdraw dust, these bags collapse and thus restrict flow.

However, these bags do function to permit of a regular predetermined movement of the sifting machine at one end, while the other end is held in fixed position.

It is the object of my invention to provide a suitable connecter sleeve which will remain in its original form without distortion, will convey liquids, gases, and dust without any leakage, will be long lasting, will not collapse either because of sagging of its own weight or become slack for any reason, or because of. pressure from without due to being used with an exhaust fan for dust or gas. At the same time, it is my object to provide a structure which will permit of the regular movement of the sifting devices to which they are attached at one end, While the end connected to the in or out pipes remains fixed.

A connecter sleeve which is formed of relatively stiff flexible material, with considerable resiliency, such as a good grade of rubber, and which has corrugations around it, either annular or perhaps spiral, I have found to serve my purpose admirably. The connecter will extend lengthwise and contract again when used with a machine which has an up and down motion, and will accommodate, to a certain degree, discrepancies in required distance from delivery spout to inlet hole in sifting machines, and discrepancies in 5 exact alignment of the delivery spout and inlet hole. The sleeve or connecter will lend itself to entire endwise fiexing, and to unequal flexing as between opposite sides. It never will become tight in a lengthwise direction between connec- 10 tions, and is not subject to whipping action which will tear it away from the connections at either point of. connection. However, the connecter will not collapse or become kinked at any time, thus shutting down or limiting the fiow of material 15 therethrough.

It is my further object to provide my new connecter with a quick detachable but secure mounting on the beaded rings of the type now in use.

While in the drawings I show only applications of my invention to sifting machines, it should be noted that it will have application to other uses, 9 such as, for example, to a barrel filling machine in which the barrel is set on an agitating platform to jar down the material as it passes into the barrel, and in which the barrel is equipped, when being filled, with a cover plate, the orifice in which is provided with one of the beaded rings.

The features of novelty of my invention will be stated in the appended claims to which reference is hereby made.

In the drawings:

Figure 1 is a central vertical section through the new connecter.

Figure 2 is a like section through a beaded ring.

Figure 3 is an elevation, partly in section, showing the use of the new device in a sifter.

Figure 4 is a longitudinal section of. another type of sifting or sorting machine.

Figure 5 is a detail section of a modified form of connecter.

Figure 6 is a detail section showing the type of connecter ring used with this modified connecter.

Referring first generally to the sifter which I have used as an illustration of the employment of my invention, I show a frame I, a mechanism 2 for causing it to move about in a suitable path for setting up agitation of material, a housing 3, surrounding the screen 4, and orifices 5 and 6, one being an inlet and two outlets.

The orifices are equipped with rings 1, which have beads la rolled into their outer ends. It will be obvious without illustration, that a double beaded plain ring could be used as an adapter between two of my connecter sleeves. It will also be understood that the conduits, hopper mouths, or container spouts, or what not, from which material flows, or out through which it fiows, will be equipped with rings 1 having beaded edges la.

The connecter consists of a sleeve 8 of gum rubber or analogous material, so far as properties are concerned; and because I refer to rubber in the remainder of this specification and in the claims, I do not wish to be understood as excluding synthetic materials and like elastic, wear-resistant material, from being equivalent.

The sleeve 8 is corrugated with corrugations 9. These impart stiffness against collapse, ballooning and sagging, and promote the resistance to wear of the sleeve upon the repeated bendings to which it must be subjected.

The corrugations also provide seats for distending rings l0, which may sometimes be required in case a very heavy exhaust vacuum is maintained within the sleeve.

Each end of the sleeve is preferably provided with a flange I l for manipulation and strengthening purposes, and above the flange on the inside with a groove I2, for engaging over the bead la of one of the beaded orifice rings. As illustrated, the sleeves connect an inlet conduit I 3 to the sifter, and outlet pipes I4 to the sitter.

In use the connecter sleeve can readily be set up and dismounted by merely snapping the ends of the connecter over the ring beads, and bending the ends away so as to snap them away from the beads. When seated over the beaded rings, the connecter is very firmly held against lengthwise removal.

In Figure 4 I have shown a sifting machine with a body l5, which is caused to travel at one end in a path which is in a vertical circular arc, under actuation of the eccentric I6. The connecter sleeves are here of a modified type, as shown in Figures 4 and 5. The bodies are the same as shown at IT, except that there are fewer corrugations. The connecter rings 18, instead of having beads thereon, have grooves 19 for receiving the ends of the connecter sleeves. The connecter sleeves have internal beads 20 for engaging the grooves in the connecter rings. Flanges 2| on the sleeve ends serve as finger holes for manipulating the sleeves. This is an inversion of the groove and bead relationship already described. Both structures operate in the same way.

During the operation of the sifter, the end of the sleeve connected to the sifter will readily move to and fro, following the sifter movement, while the other end will remain still, due to being connected to a non-moving part.

As heretofore stated, I have illustrated but one of the analogous uses to which my invention can be put.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is:

1. The combination with a shaking member for treating a substance, same having a feed orifice, and a fixed conduit to be connected thereto, of a connecter sleeve comprising a tubular rubber body having corrugations circumferentially thereof, and a connecter ring arranged to fit within the body and fixedly secured about the said orifice, the tubular body and the ring, one of them having an annular bead, and the other a groove adapted to fit over the bead when the body is set over the ring, the end of the tubular body where it is attached to the ring, having a radially projecting flange for manipulating the tubular body, and means for detachably connecting said tubular body portion to the end of the conduit, for the purpose described.

2. The combination with a shaking member for treating a substance, same having a feed 0riT- fice, and a fixed conduit to be connected thereto; of a connecter sleeve comprising a tubularrubher body having corrugations circumierentially thereof, and a connecter ring arranged to fit within the body and fixedly secured about the said orifice, the tubular body and the ring, one of them having an annular bead, and the other a groove adapted to fit over the bead when the body is set over the ring, the end of the tubular body where it is attached to the ring, having a radially projecting flange for manipulating the tubular body, and means for detachably connecting said tubular body portion to the end of the conduit, said detachable connection between the tubular body and the end of the conduit corresponding to the one between the tubular body and the fixed ring, for the purpose described.

3. The combination with a shaking member for treating a' substance, same having a feed orifice, and a fixed conduit to be connected thereto, of a connecter sleeve comprising a tubular rubber body having corrugations circumferentially thereof, and a connecter ring arranged to fit within the body and fixedly secured about the said orifice, the tubular body and the ring, one of them having an annular bead, and the other a groove adapted to fit over the bead when the body is set over the ring, and at least one distender ring housed in one of the corrugations of the tubular body intermediate the ends where it is attached, and means for detachably connecting said tubular body portion to the end of the conduit, for the purpose described.

LOWE E. SIMPSON. 

